Bill Adds Arrest Powers

State Legislators Move To Crack Down On Human Smuggling

TALLAHASSEE — In an effort to crack down on human-smuggling operations in Florida, lawmakers on Tuesday created a state statute that would outlaw such activities and give local law enforcement arrest powers.

Senators on Tuesday unanimously passed a law that would make human smuggling a first-degree misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail for each person smuggled.

The new state law is aimed to serving as a deterrent preventing tragedies at shore and sea where numerous Haitians, Bahamians and Cubans, bound for the United States drown each year.

"Florida's shores have long been used by smugglers," said Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland.

Her bill, SB 502, is an attempt, she said, to help "unfortunate refugees who are thrown into Florida's waters by criminal smugglers."

House Bill 123, sponsored by Rep. William Snyder, R-Stuart, passed unanimously in the House Friday.

"We have so much coastline and we're a destination point for smugglers," Snyder said. "So this bill makes perfect sense."

But immigration advocates have expressed concern that the new state law is so broad that anyone driving in a car with undocumented immigrants could be arrested.

"First of all, legally, the state doesn't have a right to do this. It's a federal issue," said Randy McGrorty, chief executive officer of Catholic Charities Legal Service in Miami. "I really think in many ways it's a cover for anti-immigrant people to make political points and that they're not serious about the issue."

Up to now, human-smuggling cases had been handled on the federal level with local law enforcement only able to detain suspects until federal authorities arrived.

State law had prohibited only human trafficking - defined as recruitment and/or transportation of migrants into the country through coercion or fraud for exploitation - but not human smuggling, which is considered a consensual transaction.

The new state law would take effect Oct. 1 and would give local law enforcement on-scene arrest powers, allow them to obtain witness statements and preserve crime-scene evidence.